January 2019 TLC Newsletter article
Diane Michaud, Ken Berry, and Simone Laughton
Quercus (powered by Canvas) was adopted as the University of Toronto’s official learning management engine (LME) as of September 1, 2018. Several UTM instructors were asked to provide their feedback regarding their first few months of using the new system in a brief preliminary survey.
Overall, most instructors expressed that it was fairly intuitive, flexible and user-friendly and that they liked the general look-and-feel of Quercus. Some acknowledged that there is a learning curve as to be expected with a new system.
Instructors also noted several functionalities that they wish they and their students had known about prior to the start of their courses, provided some advice and observations regarding how they use Quercus to support teaching and learning, and made some suggestions for improvement.
What is one thing you wish you knew about Quercus prior to the start of your course?
“Being able to post timed quizzes.” – David Samson, Anthropology
“The limitations of the Gradebook and how to navigate them.” – Barbara Murck, Geography
“I wish I knew more about File-Upload questions in online quizzes, and how to use the Speed Grader.” – Shay Fuchs, Mathematical & Computational Sciences
Other instructors indicated that they wished they had known about the
- differences between Modules and Pages.
- limitations of the mobile app.
- time needed to set things up from a previous version of the course.
- extra step when using pages (click ‘Pages’ then ‘View All Pages’).
- interface – it’s a web-based approach.
- analytics and how to take advantage of them.
What is one thing you wish your students knew about Quercus prior to the start of your course?
“To NOT change the notification settings on their account, to make sure they do continue to receive notifications.” – Barbara Murck, Geography
“limitations on mobile app” – W. Bailey, Economics
Some additional items that were mentioned included
- Students not knowing the most common places to look for items (Modules, Pages, etc.) as they seem to focus on files.
- Teaching students the basics [Video available for students].
Has Quercus had an impact on how you teach?
“I’ve gone paperless already … now Turnitin is integrated so that simplifies things. A big improvement is that the rubrics now actually work for us and we can use SpeedGrader, which we love. For the first time, I'm using group assignments.” – Helene Wagner, Biology
“Yes, I am currently using Online Quizzes with File Upload Questions in MAT134Y5 (Calculus for Life Sciences). Quercus works great with diagrams and mathematical formulas.” – Shay Fuchs, Mathematical & Computational Sciences
Instructors also mentioned that
- Quercus was useful to allow students to submit text, written and/or multimedia attachments.
- When using the built-in peer review feature, the automatic option (automatically assign peer reviews) needs improvement. If a student submits late, then the student will need to be manually assigned for peer review; also, there is only a deadline for the initial submission.
What main piece of advice do you have about communicating with students through Quercus?
“For the discussion board, things are different … Now it seems that I create threads and students then post lots of different things under them, without being able to create a thread header. I’ll need to review how I do this.” – Helene Wagner, Biology
Another tip was to check the ‘Send an individual message to each recipient’ box when composing messages, so that students do not see the names of others in the class and cannot use ‘reply all’.
What main piece of advice do you have for using the Quercus gradebook?
“The main advice is don’t wait to figure out the Gradebook later in the semester. By that point it might be too late to get it set up the way you want it. It's better to wrestle with it before the course starts, and then you will have fewer problems later.” – Barbara Murck, Geography
"Extra credit is not very intuitive or flexible in how it's given.” – David Samson, Anthropology
Additional suggestions were to:
- Learn about the features of the Quercus gradebook, such as dropping the lowest assignments, automatically assigning “0” to missing assignments, exempting students from assignments
- Carefully consider the course grading scheme as Quercus doesn’t have as much flexibility regarding sums, maximums and minimums.
- Some modifications may be needed for the types of assignments originally planned (e.g., quizzes versus ungraded surveys).
- Ensure you mute the assignment column before grading papers.
Have Quercus content organization features, such as modules or pages, changed or improved the way students experience your course?
“A huge improvement is the “Module” structure that allows me to organize materials of different types in chronological units, so that students find all the materials for one week on one page (with links). I think the calendar is a big improvement for students.” – Helene Wagner, Biology
“These features don’t seem to work well with my course structures so I’ve had to put workarounds in place.” – Chester Scoville, English
“Absolutely …. just create one schedule table and link the files within it all in one place! So much less redundancy and much more efficiency in delivering resources.” – Jade Atallah, Biology
Has Quercus facilitated providing more feedback, or richer feedback to students?
“Yes, we love the Speedgrader. Before, we had to upload externally written and saved comment sheets. It’s a great feature that you can save and reuse comments. However, I don't have experience yet with multiple graders working at the same time.” – Helene Wagner, Biology
“For online assignments, it has been extremely easy to provide feedback to students and for students to provide feedback for each other’s work. It can be done at any time and provides instant comments to those seeking more feedback”. – Sophie Bello, Language Studies
What, if anything, have you found most challenging about Quercus?
“Gradebook and messages.” – W. Bailey, Economics
“Things move around a lot depending on screen size and I don't like that. I like my course site to behave exactly as intended. Also, it seems that there are many more advanced options/solutions that are invisible to non-HTML users which is not nice … But, I have now operated a total of four large courses using Quercus and have not had major problems. That says something.” – Jade Atallah, Biology
Some other challenges noted by instructors included:
- Lack of deadline dates for peer reviews.
- Uploading an Articulate Storyline module to Quercus.
- Not being able to do a ‘delayed release date’ for a Page.
- Page/module structures that could be more flexible.
- Muting items in the Gradebook, - students still see the item but not the grade or putting a delayed release date on a file – students still see the link but can’t open the file.
Additional comments from instructors:
Several instructors indicated that they found it easy to add a customized due date (extensions) while creating a quiz or assignment for students with accessibility-related accommodations or students in extenuating circumstances.
Several instructors pointed out that certain tools are not yet available in Quercus. However, instructors have used many of the integrations such as UT OMR Grade Upload (Scantron), Blackboard Collaborate Ultra (web conferencing), and iClicker.
Whether your use of Quercus is basic or advanced, the UTM Library Instructional Technology team is available to help. We encourage you to contact the team
Email: utml.instructech@utoronto.ca
Phone: 905-601-8859
Website: Quercus (Canvas) Help and Teaching with Technology
Login to Quercus: https://q.utoronto.ca/
Wishing each of you all the best in 2019!
Thank you very much to the following people for sharing their thoughts on Quercus:
Jade Atallah, Biology
W. Bailey, Economics
Sophia Bello, Language Studies
Cathy-Ann Cope, Career Centre
Shay Fuchs, Mathematical & Computational Sciences
Barbara Murck, Geography
David Samson, Anthropology
Chester Scoville, English
Helene Wagner, Biology